It’s worth mentioning

For local politicians to suggest it would be repetitive to offer a traditional First Nations territory acknowledgment at the start of their meetings is a bit rich.

These are the same people who talk in circles for hours about the most mundane things and whose gift for gab is partly responsible for getting them elected.

The idea of a regular territory acknowledgements was floated last week at a committee meeting of the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen board by Summerland Mayor Toni Boot during a broader discussion about meeting policies and procedures.

Not a single director spoke directly in favour of it, although they did agree to offer lukewarm support for acknowledgements at special functions and to refer it to staff for options.

Such acknowledgements, meant to remind people there were others here long before them, don’t have to be long. The Central Okanagan school board’s is nice and concise: “We hereby acknowledge that we are on the territory of the Okanagan First People.”

So is the Regional District of Central Okanagan, which also has the Westbank First Nations flag in its board room.

The Dream Cafe, a renowned music house in Penticton, makes a similar statement prior to each concert.

Employees with Interior Health post at the bottom of their emails: “I acknowledge that my work place is within the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the Syilx Nation.”

Obviously it doesn’t make up for the decades of abuse and attempted extermination to which Canada’s more recent arrivals subjected Indigenous people, but it’s a start. And that’s what reconciliation is about: It’s a process.

The process begins with educating ourselves and others about Canada’s shameful treatment of Indigenous people.

So for our elected leaders to suggest that offering a single sentence at the start of a meeting is too onerous is simply disappointing and disrespectful in this day and age.